GTA Online gets its first new heist in almost three years next week

The Doomsday Heist is coming to GTA on 12 December.

GTA Online gets a new heist on 12 December—The Doomsday Heist is described as an 'epic new online adventure' that sees your criminal crew contending with 'apocalyptic' threats. The trailer above suggests that it'll involve a whole host of the new vehicles Rockstar has added to the game over the last few years, including the military bunker vehicles and the aircraft from Smuggler's Run. There's also a bloody submarine and underwater cars.

Speculating on what the trailer shows us, it looks like it fits the same format as the existing four main heists—you can see four player characters being debriefed by Lester in the trailer, which feels very familiar. This is a real surprise. In 2015, Rockstar suggested that new heists weren't on the cards any time soon. Indeed, when the PC Gamer crew disbanded after the final heist, we thought we were done for good. Now I'm making them reinstall the game as you read this.

Here's Rockstar's description of the heist's premise: "A billionaire tech mogul, an idealistic intelligence agent, a socially awkward conspiracy theorist and a neurotic supercomputer have been forced into an unlikely alliance to save San Andreas from total annihilation. As apocalyptic threats mount from enemies unknown, you and your criminal crew are enlisted to un-tangle mysteries and eradicate threats spanning from the bustling streets of downtown Los Santos to the ocean floor and all the way to the inner depths of Mount Chiliad in an epic new online adventure.

I think this is fantastic news. Seasoned GTA players have sampled the game's existing heists over and over again at this point, and recent updates have focused more on businesses and multiplayer modes. I can't think of a better reason to come back to GTA than another one of these.